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Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 256MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Wednesday, 21 June 2006 |
Elite Bastards are showing a review on the Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT graphics card. While low-end graphics boards have been the favourites of system builders for some time now, thanks to their support for features that they are often too slow to use yet and large amounts of very slow memory. Features which really don't help end users in the slightest, but are invaluable to OEM's who are trying to tick off as many marketing check boxes as possible. The NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT hopes to offer the casual gamer decent performance without breaking the bank. Galaxy have all but thrown away the reference GeForce 7300 GT design in order to provider a far cooler and turbo charged take on the GeForce 7300 GT.
 Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 256MB PCI-E Review
I won't keep you in suspense any longer, here is Galaxy's GeForce 7300 GT. First things first, let's talk clock speeds. As already mentioned that a reference part has both core and memory clocks of 350MHz. So, how does a core clock of 500MHz and a memory speed of 700MHz sound? Pretty impressive, but you'll never see a GeForce 7300 GT running at those clock speeds, right? Wrong, those are exactly the clock speeds Galaxy have opted for with this part. As the product name suggests, Galaxy have also done away with DDR2 for this SKU, replacing it with 256MB of GDDR3 instead.
Despite the fact that Galaxy's GeForce 7300 GT is already clocked at higher than reference speeds, our sample board was no slouch in the overclocking department. Starting with our core overclock, we managed an increase of close to 50MHz, leaving us with a stable maximum of 548MHz. Memory overclocking however was an even better story, with the RAM speed reaching upwards and upwards, before settling at a stable maximum overclock of over 100MHz higher, giving us a final clock speed of 803MHz! So quite a pretty impressive boost over the default clock speeds set by Galaxy.
In many senses, the use of the GeForce 7300 moniker for this part is a misnomer. It isn't based on a low-end core, and in the case of this part in particular it offers beyond low-end performance, as our testing here has proved. Of course, this isn't the fault of Galaxy at all, they are simply working within NVIDIA's guidelines, but it's certainly somewhat confusing to have a mid-range wolf hiding away in a low-end sheep's clothing. Leaving aside my pedantry towards the product name, Galaxy have done a fine job of differentiating this board from the crowd, just as they did the GeForce 7600 GS.
As if the replacement of the reference cooler with a Zalman part wasn't enough to impress, the real shot in the arm to this board is the use of GDDR3 memory alongside higher core and memory clocks, which push the performance of this part well beyond your average GeForce 7300 GT, and into the mid-range performance I was just talking about. All this from a part under the GeForce 7300 banner is, quite simply, astounding. On that front alone then, it's hard not to recommend Galaxy's GeForce 7300 GT, as both its cooler and performance make it a compelling part provided it's within your price range.
However, having said that, the use of GDDR3 memory and the fancy cooler have had something of an impact on price, putting it above most other GeForce 7300 GT boards in this sense. This doesn't stop Galaxy's effort being a worthwhile purchase, but at the same time it may well be worth seeing if you can find a GeForce 7600 GS based board at a comparable price, as this could grant you better performance. As always these days, it's about shopping around to get the best bang for your buck. One thing is for sure though, Galaxy's GeForce 7300 GT has a lot of bang under that nifty Zalman cooler.
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